‘CENSORED’: Defiant Students Publish Digital Newspaper After University Bans Print Publication
Indiana Daily Student
The turmoil at The Indiana Daily Student began on Tuesday, when director of student media Jim Rodenbush, an adviser to the Indiana Daily Student, was fired by the dean of the Media School.
Though the dean said in a letter that the firing was due to a “lack of leadership and inability to work in alignment with the university’s direction,” Rodenbush said he had “no doubt” that he was removed because he refused to comply with the school’s push to stop students from reporting news content.
Rodenbush, who has served as director since 2018, said in interviews that he began receiving pressure from the administration to stop student publication of news in August this year. He communicated these wishes to student writers and editors but refused to take part in the censorship himself.
“Any type of attempt on my end to censor or manipulate any content from a student media outlet is literally against the law,” Rodenbush told IDS staff during their Oct. 9 meeting. “This is First Amendment stuff.”
Student editors released a defiant piece, accusing the university of infringing on their editorial independence and of “unlawful censorship.”
The letter directly tied Rodenbush’s firing to his refusal to censor students, including a quote from the school’s Student Press Law Center that read: “If the abrupt ousting of the student media director was related to his refusal to participate in such censorship, the message is clear: IU no longer welcomes a free student press. The Media School must reverse course immediately, before more damage is done to its reputation and to its students’ rights.”
The following day, the university told students they were no long allowed to release the paper’s planned print edition and could publish future issues solely online.
The students did, in fact, publish a digital paper. The headline: “CENSORED.”
“This is not about print. This is about a breach of editorial independence,” reads the subheading.
The backlash from students over Rodenbush’s firing and the cessation of print publications has been widespread. The university’s Student Publications Alumni Association Board send a letter to the Media School dean, writing that any attempt to “dictate coverage — and any retribution in the form of stopping publication — is a violation not only of the norms of free press that underpin democratic society, but of I.U.’s own agreements with generations of student journalists, including the current editors.”
The school’s chancellor, David Reingold, released a emailed statement claiming that “the university has not and will not interfere with their editorial judgment.”
“To be clear, the campus’ decision concerns the medium of distribution, not editorial content,” he said. “All editorial decisions have and will continue to rest solely with the leadership of IDS and all IU student media. We uphold the right of student journalists to pursue stories freely and without interference.”
